Butler Bulldogs

The Butler Bulldogs play in one of basketball's most iconic gyms, the historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, and carry a Cinderella-turned-power-conference story unlike any other program. Butler's brand is built on disciplined, fundamentally sound basketball and defied-the-odds March runs that captured the country's attention. Now a Big East mainstay, the Bulldogs remain proof that culture and coaching can outperform recruiting rankings.

Butler University was founded in 1855 in Indianapolis. The basketball program's defining stretch came under coach Brad Stevens, who led the Bulldogs to back-to-back NCAA championship game appearances in 2010 and 2011, falling to Duke and then Connecticut. Those runs, played partly at home in Hinkle Fieldhouse — the same court used in the movie 'Hoosiers' — turned Butler into a national mid-major sensation. The Bulldogs jumped from the Horizon League to the Big East in 2013, cementing their rise into a power-conference program.